Matthew Stafford, Nick Foles Top Week One Quarterback Streams in Fantasy Football

Detroit Lions quarterback Matthew Stafford (9) looks to pass during the first half of an NFL football game against the Buffalo Bills in Detroit, Michigan USA, on Friday, August 23, 2019 (Photo by Jorge Lemus/NurPhoto via Getty Images)

The NFL has never had this many capable starters, which is good news for your fantasy football team. Instead of using a high draft pick on somebody like Patrick Mahomes, you can easily stream the quarterback position in one-quarterback leagues and still get top production off of the waiver wire. Just about nobody owns Matthew Stafford or Nick Foles, but both players are in a position to put up good numbers in Week One of the 2019 season.

Matthew Stafford

2018 was not nice for Matthew Stafford. The longtime Detroit Lion struggled through one of the worst years of his career, recording 3,777 yards, 21 touchdowns, and 11 interceptions. This made him the QB19 in standard scoring, finishing behind guys like Derek Carr, Eli Manning, and Case Keenum.

However, he should be better in 2019. Stafford played through a broken back in 2018, which obviously hindered his production. He’s fully healthy now and should start playing like his old self. Prior to 2018, Stafford had never thrown for fewer than 4,000 yards in a full season. You don’t want him to be your week-in, week-out starter, but he’s more than capable of starting against the right matchup.

Week One is the right matchup. The Lions face off against the Arizona Cardinals in Week One, and their defense is going to be hot garbage. Arizona has one of the most talent-poor defenses in the league, and they’re going to miss their best player in Patrick Peterson. First-year head coach Kliff Kingsbury annually had one of the worst defenses as a college football head coach, and there’s no reason to believe he’ll figure out defense on the NFL level. You could start just about anyone against this defense and feel good about it.

Nick Foles

Nick Foles finally has a starting job, and he’s in a good position to put up big numbers against his former team. The Kansas City Chiefs are returning just about everyone from last year’s record-setting offense and added speedster Mecole Hardman. Jacksonville has a good defense, but nothing can stop this unit if they play up to their potential.

The Chiefs fixed their run defense by adding Frank Clark, but they didn’t do much to address their secondary. Even with Tyrann Mathieu, the Chiefs still have one of the worst secondaries in the league. Whether it’s a genuine shootout or just garbage time stat-padding, Nick Foles is going to put up solid numbers in Week One.

Andy Dalton

Nobody wants to start Andy Dalton, especially when A.J. Green won’t be on the field with him. However, Dalton faces a favorable matchup and can be a decent quarterback stream in a deep league. The Seattle Seahawks had a solid defense last year, but they’re poised for regression. Last year, Seattle’s defense was terrible on early downs but managed to outperform expectations thanks to turnovers and top-level red zone performance. These performances aren’t sustainable and tend to change over time, so Seattle’s defense is due for some negative regression.

The case for collapse is that their defense was entirely held together by 3rd downs + turnovers + red zone, and none of those things are stable. Their base down numbers were a disaster pic.twitter.com/SQrVkmRMsg

Even if regression doesn’t come, the 2019 Seahawks defense should be worse than their 2018 form. The team effectively replaced Frank Clark with Jadeveon Clowney, but still lost Earl Thomas to free agency and Jarran Reed to a six-game suspension. Dalton isn’t anyone’s idea of a perfect fantasy starter, but he can get you where you need to go in Week One if all other options are taken.